community Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Crafting the Collective – Tijs Boelens’ Vision for a Farmer-Led Grain Revival

July 4, 2025 Adèle Pautrat

If we want local food systems to thrive, every link in the chain must be nurtured: seeds must be saved, farmers must earn a fair price, processors must adapt their methods—and consumers must be able to afford to buy the final product. Crafting a story and connecting people are centrally important to successfully cultivating biodiversity, as Belgian farmer Tijs Boelens has found out in his work to integrate heritage grains into the supply chain. Portrait by Adèle Pautrat. […]

The Power of Diversity & Community-Managed Natural Farming – The Future of Agriculture Comes From India

June 10, 2025 Benedikt Haerlin

Crop diversification to improve the soil microbiome is key to the approach of the Andhra Pradesh Community-Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) movement. After soil to bread in Portugal, the Seeds4All project continues its exploration of agronomic models rooted in interspecies cooperation as a path to sustainability, with a report from south-eastern India. In March a small Weltacker delegation visited Andhra Pradesh. Benny Haerlin reports. […]

Letter From The Farm | Community Farming in Ireland

April 25, 2025 Oliver Moore

On Cloughjordan Community Farm it takes a village to grow 50 sorts of vegetables. The member-owned farm produces high quality, nutritionally dense veggies using agroecological methods. Community is central to the farm’s work, from its CSA scheme to volunteering, and most recently a big effort to plant 2,000 trees for syntropic farming. Letter from the farm by Oliver Moore. […]

Letter From The Farm | All In A Day’s Tree Planting

April 4, 2025 Martino Newcombe

We’re back with Martino Newcombe in the West of Ireland, where he reflects on a winter’s day of planting a shelter belt of native tree species. Not on his farm, but on that of his neighbour, a retired farmer, with the help of another neighbour – echoing the traditional Irish practice of helping each other out that is known as “meitheal”. As a wildlife corridor connects flora and fauna, local networks of knowledge and skills spawn opportunities to build resilience. Martino shares the insights of a day’s work. […]

Michael Dower Award for Rural Resilience – Nominate A Rural Action-Taker Today!

October 15, 2024 ARC

Michael Dower (1937-2022) has inspired rural Europe for decades. Co-founder of the European AgriCultural Convention (EAC), which later became ARC2020, he was a phenomenal agent of change. Launching today, the Michael Dower Award for Rural Resilience will showcase the efforts of local communities and individuals who are taking action to make rural Europe a better place to live. […]

Planet Local Summit – International Vision for a Localised Future

October 20, 2023 Ursula Billington

Local food was a focus of the Planet Local Summit, a global gathering in Bristol, UK earlier this month that served to highlight the unparalleled value of the grassroots. The ‘largest gathering of its kind’, it was a rare in-person opportunity for actors from all over the world to learn, share and celebrate together, in a showing of solidarity for the movement. Ursula Billington reports from Bristol. […]

Farming with Benefits – Building Soil and Community

March 31, 2022 Marianne Landzettel

“Am I really prepared to poison the kids?” wondered American wheat farmer Klaas Martens, after an injury that he suspects was caused by herbicides. He has since converted the whole farm to organic. These days, he pays attention to the story his ‘weeds’ tell him, nurturing the community of organisms in his soil – and building community knowledge among farmers. Excerpt from a book by Marianne Landzettel. […]

Letter From The Farm | Investing In The Future

February 11, 2022 Matthew Hayes

We’re back on Zsámboki Biokert organic market garden in Hungary, where Matthew and Kata Hayes and the team are taking time to plan for the year ahead. January was a time to reflect on the year gone by, and the conscious effort that the farm is making to invest in the next generation, and to encourage young people to think about our food systems. In these uncertain times for micro-scale farmers, and for farming in general, Covid has driven home the need to build and maintain community and common values, writes Matthew. […]

France | Change Is In Our Hands – Part 2

February 4, 2022 Valérie Geslin

Far from the stereotype of the solitary farmer, Marion and Benjamin make a conscious effort to get farming out of its bubble. It’s the only way they’ll shift mentalities, they believe. The two farmers, who are associates in a cooperative mixed farm in Brittany, also open up on the thorny issues of unpaid activism, taking holidays as a farmer, and feeding the community versus feeding the world. Part 2 of an interview with Valérie Geslin. […]

France | Change Is In Our Hands – Part 1

January 14, 2022 Valérie Geslin

Marion and Benjamin are pig and dairy farmers on a community funded farm in Brittany, France. Agricultural engineers by training, they have reverse engineered the process of farming to make sure they get to take time off and make a decent living. In part 1 of a fascinating conversation, Valérie Geslin, project coordinator for Nos Campagnes en Résilience, unpacks their experiments in rural resilience. […]

Germany | Surviving Below Sea Level

September 24, 2021 Hannes Lorenzen

How does a rural community plan for the future when it is literally living below sea level? In this excerpt from the book “Rural Europe on the Move: A travel guide to transitions”, Hannes Lorenzen shares the story of his home island of Pellworm on Germany’s North Frisian coast, where the community has come together in the face of climate change, rising sea levels, and other threats to its survival. […]

Romania | Until The Cows Come Home

July 17, 2021 Paul White

In Transylvania villages, families will often own a cow or two. The day begins with neighbours taking turns to usher the cows out to the common meadows around the village, where they graze on tasty grass under the watchful eye of local herdsmen and their dogs. Come evening time the cows make their own way home for milking. Photo essay by Paul White. […]

Bristol Bites Back | Fruits & Roots of Radical Resilience in South-West England

July 16, 2021 Ursula Billington

A new e-book published by ARC2020 documents one community’s inspiring response to the COVID-19 crisis. An antidote to the doom and gloom, “Bristol Bites Back: Fruits & Roots of Radical Resilience in South-West England” is tangible, practical proof that ecosystem-based approaches to food, farming and sustainability do indeed bear fruit for their patient protagonists – in some cases after decades of going against the grain of a productivist mindset. […]

UK | Who Grew Your Clothes? Soil to Soil Textiles – Part 2

May 10, 2021 Ursula Billington

In this second installment of a two-part special on the soil-to-soil textiles movement, we hear from more women spearheading new ways with wool, as Ursula Billington zooms in on an innovative textile community in Bristol. […]

UK | How City Farms Are Opening Their Gates To Equity

April 8, 2021 Ursula Billington

In the UK, where the Black Lives Matter movement coalesced with a pandemic-provoked appreciation for green space and local food for all, questions of unequal land access and ownership are becoming impossible to ignore. Ursula Billington reports on a couple of urban farms that are opening their gates to inclusion. […]